Family Life - Mrs Gillian Bray

·49 min·2 clips

Hubert Armand stole a ration truck to feed starving children in an Italian convent.

Mrs. Gillian Bray speaks from a long connection to the 5th Royal Inner Skilling Dragoon Guards. She was born in 1937 in Colchester, and her family lived in married quarters on Butt Road. The setting was closely tied to the regiment’s horses and the day to day routine around them. She remembers her older sister taking her and another sister down to the horse lines, where soldiers lifted the girls up and sat them in the manger. It is a warm memory, but also a practical one. She speaks first as a daughter, and later as the wife of a serving soldier. That double connection is clear throughout the interview. Her father had already been in the army for many years when she was born. He was a sergeant then. Family life around him was shaped by postings and regimented work. The conversation then turns to wartime recollection. She describes her father’s service in Italy. One story turns on a circus train that had derailed in the dark. Another turns on the uneasy search for lions after reports from the track. It is the kind of story that sounds almost unreal, but she tells it plainly, and the fear and confusion of that pitch black night still comes through. The interview later touches on the movement of troops after hostilities ceased. Her father was posted to Trieste. He joined the Adjutant General Staff there. Part of the work involved identifying SS troops among German prisoners of war. Another part involved returning Yugoslavians to Yugoslavia. She does not try to smooth the history into something neat. The family side stays central. She also speaks about her sister Gwendoline’s hospital treatment and the funds raised for it, with a suggestion that the army or the regiment contributed as well. What remains is a family held in relation to the regiment across two generations. The episode keeps that connection intact in her own words. It is patient, domestic, and full of remembered detail.

As heard by us

A regiment remembered through one family life, from Colchester married quarters to later generations of service.

Mrs. Gillian Bray's memories stay close to the daily life of the 5th Inner Skilling Dragoon Guards. Born in 1937 in Colchester, she speaks from married quarters on Butt Road, where horses, horse lines, and camp routines sit beside family life and the small acts that kept people…

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Hear a regiment's history through one family's life at home.

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